- inchs i, an liad Fi i te A et Me eh Te ie oo ie ee er on cs

ra

PIERRE AND JOE
HAVE A POLICY

ON UNEMPLOYMENT:
IT’S WORKING AND
WE AREN’T. |

VOTE FOR A CHANGE

sayy

VAS -1°8O-Nc ©

25 years ago...

CANADA’S SHAME AT
THE UNITED NATIONS

When the United Nations
General Assembly termed South
Africa’s race segregation policy
“a grave threat to the peaceful
relations between ethnic groups
in the world,” it did so over the
opposition of the Canadian
delegate.

The Assembly on December
15 approved a United Nations
special commission report,

asked the three-member com-.

mission to keep the question
under review, and called upon
South Africa for its cooperation
— so far refused.

The resolution was adopted
40 to 10 with 10 abstentions.
Canada voted against it.

The vote was a victory for
India and Pakistan, which have
consistently complained about
the South Africa policy.

The Tribune,
January 17, 1955

50 years ago...

$26 YEARS IN JAIL

FOR REVOLUTIONARIES

SOFIA, Bulgaria — The trial
against 52 accused communist
workers ,has reached an end.
Forty of them, including four
women, have been sentenced to
a total of 326 years imprison-
ment and 6 million leva fines.
Twelve were acquitted after
spending a year in the police
prison for “investigation” under
the worst tortures.

. Several prisoners were carried
from the court for openly ad-
vocating the program of the
Communist International and
the Communist Party of Bul-
garia. :

The last day of the trial saw
huge demonstrations and a
delegation was elected to peti-
tion the court prosecutor. He re-
fused to be interviewed and the
group refused to leave. They
were arrested and now another
trial begins.

The Worker,
January 18, 1930

Profiteer of the week:

for what?

What makes food prices keep going up? If
you ask Steinberg Inc., the food store empire,
they'll cite high costs, outrageous wages,
taxes, bigger stamp pads, etc. As for the
$6,920,000 12-week- profit (period ended Oct.
20/79) that’s after expenses, after purchases,
after taxes. Projecting that figure gives an an-
nual profit of $29,980,000 — out of our pockets,

Figures used are from the company's financial statements.

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR

Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive,
Vancouver, B.C. V5L 3X9. Phone 251-1186

Subscription Rate: Canada $10 one yr.; $6.00 for six months;
All other countries, $12 one year.

Second class mail registration number 1560

BIDIITORILAIL
COMIMIEINT

ae eereeereeesreresnesee seen e see aes eseivneseve

Vote for jobs, security

The statisticians at Statistics Canada,
and the headline writers for the boss
media are pretty happy about being able
to announce a “drop” in unemployment.
Jobless rate down to 7.1%, says one
paper, quoting the official, seasonally-
adjusted figure.

The odd fact about these reports is
that they are supposedly based on sur-
veys which show that December was the
third month in a row in which the actual
number of jobless climbed. December’s
official 779,000 out-of-work workers was
a jump from November’s official
771,000, and that was an increase from

| October.

What workers understand is that lay-
offs, plant closures and cutbacks in pro-
duction are putting them on the street,
figures or no figures. And what young
people coming out of school know is that
there aren’t enough jobs for them de-

_ Spite the computer's “improved” figure.

Over in socialist countries - where
everyone is guaranteed a job, constitu-
tionally and in ae they find it hard
to comprehend our system which does
everything to demoralize a massive sec-
tion of workers, while slowing the coun-
try’s progress. Is it logical, indeed, to vote
the old-party candidates who have
demonstrated that, in power, they will
not and cannot solve the unemployment
problem, but force workers to bear the
brunt?

‘Even by a count that misses a few hun-

dred thousand, December’s figures go
far enought to admit that 12.3% of the
section of the labor force between 15 and

Anti-Soviet

The facts about Afghanistan are avail-
able for those who want facts, as the in-
ventions of U.S. imperialism’s prop-
aganda machine are available for the gul-
lible and the devious.

In the hands of the latter, the war
hawks, the pawns in high places such as
the Canadian ex-government, and a
whole rag bag of anti-socialist pushers,
there is an effort to breath life into an
anti-Soviet campaign which will “justify”
any lunatic statement or action.

At the base of it is the hoary cry of
death to socialism, and most frantically,
to the 62-year-old first socialist state, the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
These champions of punishing the
Soviet Union for its military aid to Af-
ghanistan are a throwback to the 1918:
19 period when Canadian soldiers were
dispatched to join British, U.S. and other
troops in attempting to overthrow the

- young Soviet. state.

It is now more than 60 years later and
it is incredible that people like Flora
MacDonald still use the arguments of
those earliest anti-Soviet days: they have
no newspapers, they can’t read, socialism

-is fundamentally aggressive, and similar

myths. ss
What is treasonous about such prop-
aganda is the fact that it tries to deprive

Canadians of access to truthful reports; —

it tries to stampede them into embracing
the murderous imperialist campaign of

- anti-socialism, anti-liberation struggles,

24 years of age are without jobs. Among
women the figure is 8.2% officially.

New Democrat leader Ed Broadbent
and his advisors would be ‘satisfied to
have only 440,000 unemployed, or 4%.
And that’s quite an expectation if based
simply on stop-gap, election-gimmick
solutions. It almost coincides with what
the ruling class thinks should be called
“full employment”.

The workers of Canada can do better
than that, and they'll fight to do better,
because which 440,000 are willing to toss
aside their incomes to fit into the NDP
plan?

There’s a better way, an all-Canadian
development program based on public

‘ownership of resources, and use of those
_ resources in newly-created secondary
industry to provide jobs, higher living

standards, and security for the working
people of Canada. That is what the
Communist Party stands for in this elec-
tion and at all times; and it includes re-
tention of Petrocan as a Crown company
and expansion of its tasks.

This, and the related. portions of the
Communist Party platform, presented
by its 52 election candidates, get at the
root of the unemployment burden being
thrust onto workers. What we need is not
seasonal adjustment of jobless figures, or
seasonal adjustment of Tory-Liberal
promises, but men and women in par-
liament who will battle for fundamental
solutions to this blight, forced on the
working people by an anti-labor, social
system, bossed by the monopoly corpo-
rations and their political servants.

for 62 years

and in the capitalist countries anti-labor
on which it feeds.

The facts are available. One should
not go through the tortuous route of try-
ing to fathom Flora MacDonald’s
obscure jabs at socialist reality — or even
her blurring of reality in the West, where
‘many people are knowledgeable about
the Soviet Union.

But such right-wing reactionaries pay
the price of their isolation. They cannot
be believed, or trusted — certainly not

‘with a government.

Democratic Afghanistan, aided by its
Soviet neighbor, will stand long after the
current crop of servants of monopoly
capitalism have been replaced by even
more eager vehicles for resuscitating an
obsolete and demeaning social system,
and spewing its propaganda. But neither
will they be believed or supported.

Hands off
games

Every Canadian who endorses the
Olympic idea of countries competing on
the merits of their athletes, rather than
by threatening people half a world away,
or tricking the unwary with propaganda
stunts, should write, wire or phone the
prime minister protesting the Clark gov-
ernment’s lead role in trying to disrupt
the Moscow summer Olympics.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 25, 1980—Page 3